Jonathan Coe - Number 11

‘Mortimer,’ he said simply.

‘Oh no …’ Rachel knelt down, and reached out to touch the motionless bundle. ‘Not Mortimer.’ Her voice cracked and tears started to well up.

‘Don’t touch,’ he said. ‘Don’t look. It’s terrible.’

‘Why?’ said Rachel. ‘Why, what happened?’

‘Something attacked him. We heard terrible noises in the garden. By the time we got there, he was dead.’

‘But what could have attacked him? A fox? No, he could win a fight with a fox, surely?’

‘Bigger than a fox. Must be. Don’t look! ’

Rachel had been about to raise the tarpaulin in spite of herself.

‘It’s terrible. His face — all gone. Half his body — gone. Eaten.’ He took Rachel by the arm and helped her gently to her feet. ‘Come on. Come inside for a drink. We’ll tell the girls in the morning.’

Later, Rachel would tell the doctors that was the day — the Sunday she went to Lausanne, the day Mortimer died — that everything started to fall apart, and the horror began.

On Tuesday she had booked her visit to see Alison in Eastwood Park.

Rachel had never visited a prison before and had no idea what to expect. It was in a rural setting and involved a long bus ride from the nearest railway station, alongside passengers who all wore the same closed, mask-like but apprehensive expressions. The gateway to the prison looked more like the entrance to a suburban housing estate than anything else. Rachel had brought every piece of ID that she possessed and this was a good thing because she had to show all of them before she could be admitted to the waiting area. Here, she and the other visitors were held for more than twenty-five minutes before a bell sounded and they were led into the hall.

Rachel had not seen Alison for five years or more, and their week together in Beverley back in the summer of 2003 seemed a lifetime ago. She was looking thin and her hair was cut shorter than Rachel could ever remember seeing it. It was not clear that she was especially happy to see her old friend. The visiting hall was full, and the tables were closer together than Rachel would have imagined. They both felt uncomfortable, at first, and their conversation was stilted, consisting mainly of Alison’s answers to questions about prison routine.

‘It’s so boring ,’ she kept saying. ‘Thank God we’ve got TVs in the cells because otherwise we’d go mad. Mind you, they only let you have those because lock-up’s cheaper than letting you out and having to keep an eye on you.’

‘Do you have classes and things?’

‘Yeah, they’re pretty crap, but they give you something to do. I’ve been giving a few art classes myself. Weekends are the worst. We get locked up at five fifteen. Fuck, that gets depressing.’

Rachel reached across the table and clasped her hand.

‘It’s so good to see you again. You will come and see me when you get out, won’t you?’

‘Yeah, if you want me to,’ said Alison, uncertainly.

‘Of course I do. I’ve missed you. We shouldn’t have left it so long.’

Alison hesitated a moment, and said: ‘Well, that wasn’t exactly my fault.’

Rachel frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean,’ she answered; and now, as she looked across at Rachel, there was a challenge in her eyes.

‘Alison, I wrote to you. I phoned. I texted. You never answered. Why not?’

‘Why not?’ Alison gave a quiet, disbelieving laugh. ‘Because … Because why would I want to stay friends with someone who judged me, and disapproved of me?’

‘I never did that.’

‘Didn’t you? I seem to remember that you called me a pervert.’

‘What? I never did that.’

‘You implied it.’

‘How? How did I imply it?’

Alison lowered her voice, but her tone was still emphatic as she said: ‘By saying that incest was “right up my street”.’

Rachel stared at her, staggered by this allegation. ‘When did I say that?’

‘Just after I wrote to you to say I was gay.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Rachel. ‘I really don’t.’

Alison leaned forward, more insistent than ever. ‘We’d just started using Snapchat, remember? And I messaged you, asking if you’d got my letter.’

‘That’s right. I was at Harewood House, with my brother.’

‘And you wrote a message back. It said you were “doing the incest thing with him”.’

She sat with her arms folded, waiting for a response.

Rachel thought hard; tried to think back to that evening, sitting with her brother in the late-summer sunshine on the terrace. She and Alison had only just started using Snapchat, and she had barely used it since. She pictured herself writing with her forefinger … She couldn’t remember the message she had written, exactly, but a possible explanation began to dawn on her. A smile spread across her face, slowly, grew broader and broader, and then she put her face in her hands and rocked forwards, her body shaking. After a few seconds she looked up and said: ‘I think there’s a chance, you know— just the smallest chance — that I said I was doing the nicest thing.’ Alison’s mouth was half open in astonishment, so she repeated: ‘The nicest thing, Al . Nicest , not incest. Why would I have said incest?’

She looked at her friend, the corners of her mouth quivering, her eyes dancing with laughter. Alison stared back, still gaping stupidly. The silence seemed to go on for ever.

Then Alison, too, put her head in her hands and her laughter became so violent that it made no sound, just shook her body like an earthquake, an earthquake that was never going to stop, and when it finally died down and she was able to sit up straight and look towards Rachel directly again, she was smiling the widest, loveliest smile, a smile that was full of warmth and affection but also relief. Enormous relief. She got up and leaned across the table and folded her in a long, passionate hug. ‘Oh Rache,’ she said, ‘you don’t know how good it is to see you.’

‘You too,’ said Rachel.

‘So shall we never, ever do that again?’

‘Do what?’

‘Use social media, when we could be talking to each other.’

‘Yes,’ Rachel said, feelingly. ‘I think that would be a good idea.’

Alison withdrew to her own side of the table, laughed some more and then looked around her, taking in these drab, institutional surroundings as if she was seeing them for the first time, with a kind of wild despair.

‘I hate it in here,’ she said. ‘Thanks so much for coming. I’ve been so lonely . I know I’ve only got a couple of weeks to go, but it’s been horrible. So horrible. When I get out I’m going to find that bitch and I swear to God I’m going to tear her apart …’

‘Josephine, you mean?’ Rachel dropped her voice. ‘How did it happen, Alison? How did you end up in here?’

‘I had this girlfriend,’ Alison began. ‘Called Selena. We were together a couple of years. A lovely girl, but a bit … well, not so bright, sometimes. She was waitressing one night at a big do in Birmingham where Josephine was one of the guests, and somehow they got talking. About me. Josephine heard I was an artist, and she offered to set up a private show for me in London. Selena didn’t tell me who was doing it, she just said there was some benefactor who’d taken a shine to my work. I should really have been a bit more sensible, asked a few more questions. But it seemed like a such a break, you know? I couldn’t believe my luck.

‘I’d been doing a lot of portraits of homeless people, getting them in off the streets and painting them as if they were princes or emperors. A sort of parody of the kind of art that celebrates power and which never gets called “political” even though it obviously is. I’d started doing them when I was at college. Bit of a simple idea, really, but I thought it worked. Anyway, this gallery was hired for the night and all sorts of celebs and bigwigs turned up. It was pretty exciting, to be honest, though I didn’t make much money from it in the end. Most of the pictures were priced at five hundred quid or so and I only sold two. Most of the guests just drank the champagne and then fucked off.